Mesoporous carbon materials have found an increasing number of utilities, e.g., in gas separation, water purification (i.e., nanofiltration), catalyst support, and energy storage and conversion. More recently, there has been interest in applying mesoporous carbon materials as advanced electrode materials, particularly as capacitive, supercapacitive, and battery electrode (e.g., lithium-ion) materials.
At least one continuing impediment in using conventional mesoporous carbon materials in electrode applications has been their less than optimal conductivity. In efforts to improve the conductivity, graphitizable carbon precursors in the presence of organizing templates have been subjected to thermal treatments well above 2000° C. in order to increase the graphitization of the carbon material. Both soft-template (i.e., organic templates and carbon precursors) and hard-template (e.g., silica template) methods have been used, but without much success in substantially increasing the conductivity (e.g., to a conductivity approaching that of graphite) while at the same time substantially preserving the mesopores, as well as the space-ordering and size distribution of the mesopores, in the resulting mesoporous carbon material. In particular, it has been found that such high-temperature thermal treatments generally cause collapse of the mesoporous architecture. Moreover, the existing methods are not amenable for selectively adjusting the pore size and pore size distribution.
There would be a substantial benefit in a method capable of producing a highly conductive mesoporous carbon material that contains mesopores that have not been collapsed. Since hard-templating methods have the significant drawback of generally requiring harsh and abrasive chemicals to remove the refractive inorganic template, there would be a further benefit in such a method that employs a soft-templating process rather than a hard-templating process. There would be a further benefit in such a method that produces a highly conductive mesoporous carbon material with larger mesopores than conventionally produced (e.g., at least 10 nm) in a predominant amount. A further benefit in such a method would be the ability of the method to selectively adjust the pore size and pore size distribution.